Katherine Heigl admits she sometimes puts her foot in her mouth and said, “I would tell myself to shut up too.”

The “New Year’s Eve” actress shares in the new issue of Elle what it was like to have public opinion turn against her in the wake of her saying that her breakthrough movie, “Knocked Up,” was sexist and that she didn’t think she deserved an Emmy nod for “Grey’s Anatomy” because she hadn’t been given the material by the show’s writers.

Heigl says, “I look at some of what I had to say, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I would tell myself to shut up too.'”

“I’ve never really been America’s sweetheart,” Heigl continues. “I had ’em for a second thinking maybe I was. And then I opened my mouth, and it was very clear I wasn’t. There’s so much of my mother’s caustic, sarcastic, irreverent take on things. But I also love and embrace it.”

Heigl says that the negative public perception sent her publicist into crisis-control mode. A speechwriter was hired to help Heigl craft answers to questions and she was trained to treat interviews like acting gigs, essentially, playing the nice girl. But Heigl says that led to “months and months of self-hatred.”

“I was trying to stop the snowball from gaining speed,” said Heigl. “I think it’s a female thing. I’m just that (bleep)hole who really wants everyone to like me, and it’s a ridiculous goal and it’s an impossible goal.”

Now Heigl says she has a more true-to-herself plan for how to win fans. “I think if I just keep pushing forward and showing myself through and through, they will see me again for what I really am and not what has been sort of spun about me,” she explains.